Robert Armstrong Profile Banner
Robert Armstrong Profile
Robert Armstrong

@rbrtrmstrng

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US financial commentator, FT. These views are mine. The pursuit of pleasure is hard work. Sign up for my newsletter; link below

NYC, London, Shelter Island
Joined October 2013
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
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@rbrtrmstrng
Robert Armstrong
9 years
Anthony Powell, from The Strangers Are All Gone, 1983:
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Robert Armstrong
6 years
REMEMBER THE LAST GUY WHO THREATENED US? HE GOT A ONE-ON-ONE SUMMIT WITH THE US PRESIDENT, A REDUCTION IN REGIONAL MILITARY PRESSURE, KEPT HIS NUCLEAR PROGRAM, AND GAVE UP ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
@realDonaldTrump
Donald J. Trump
6 years
To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!
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Robert Armstrong
6 years
That's going to leave a mark @TBraithwaite @WeWork
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Robert Armstrong
3 months
It me
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Robert Armstrong
3 years
The Four Seasons Total Landscaping episode remains the funniest thing that has ever happened, and we should all think about it every day or so to contribute to general happiness
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Robert Armstrong
6 years
Peace begins with ill-fitting trousers
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Robert Armstrong
4 years
To quote @deray : watch whiteness work
@igorbobic
Igor Bobic
4 years
Protesters have breached the Capitol. Theyโ€™re outside the Senate chamber
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Robert Armstrong
1 year
Uber is not, in any real sense, profitable. It has positive free cash flow (OCF-Capex), but if you treat stock comp as a cash expense (WHICH YOU SHOULD) here is what cash flow looks like
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Robert Armstrong
2 months
It's working: Putin's sleeve length and collar gap show the West's tailor embargo is finally having an effect.
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Robert Armstrong
6 years
In fact, the FT are anarcho-syndicalists, but the distinction is lost on a hopeless petite bourgeois like Bannon
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Robert Armstrong
2 months
Set aside AI stocks, and we are in a declining stock market
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Robert Armstrong
1 month
I taught the core curriculum to very bright undergrads at Columbia University, and Ms Fray, if you really think most of your students are doing most of the reading, you've been had.
@jennfrey
Jennifer A. Frey
1 month
For everyone at elite schools saying it's impossible or unrealistic, here is what freshman students read in their first semester in the Honors College at The University of Tulsa. Do they do the reading? Yes. Do they appreciate the challenge? Yes. Is it hard? Yes.
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Robert Armstrong
4 years
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Robert Armstrong
11 months
The FT: we are a serious global business newspaper Me and @laureni :
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Robert Armstrong
3 years
Living in the UK, I got so sick of asking for 568.3 milliliters of beer at the pub. One day I broke down and shouted "one proud imperial pint of bitter, barman!" Damned if the EU metric measurements enforcement team didn't find out and make me move back to the US. True story!
@thetimes
The Times and The Sunday Times
3 years
Boris Johnson is to announce the return of imperial weights and measures, making it legal for market stalls, shops and supermarkets to sell their goods using only Britainโ€™s traditional weighing system post-Brexit
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Robert Armstrong
2 years
โ€œThe optics are terribleโ€ No -- the optics are just fine! This is exactly what it appears to be: monstrously bad judgement and an ugly ethical failure.
@jeannasmialek
Jeanna Smialek
2 years
The president of the St. Louis Fed spoke at a closed-press, off-record, invite-only event that Citi hosted and asked its clients to. Against Fed rules? Unclear, though we go through them in the story. Bad look? Definitely, a range of people said.
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Robert Armstrong
4 months
Losing the brilliant Ethan is to (a) the Economist and (b) Asia is really the worst. I plan to take terrible revenge on both.
@EthanYWu
Ethan Wu ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ผ
4 months
Today is my last day at the @FT . Later this year I'm starting as Asia correspondent at @TheEconomist , based in Singapore. Writing Unhedged with the great @rbrtrmstrng has been a privilege. Rob brings the wit, wisdom and substance day in & day out. (1/4)
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Robert Armstrong
7 years
The David Davis/Hillary Benn exchange is nothing but a shameless rip-off of the Monty Python "Cheese Shop" sketch
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Robert Armstrong
4 years
I'm starting a new job next month, writing the FT's daily markets & finance newsletter. Thoroughly intimidated to be following @michaellachlan and @johnauthers in the role. Like playing Bond after Sean Connery and Roger Moore.
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Robert Armstrong
5 years
what a time to be alive
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Robert Armstrong
3 years
A cheerful little number I wrote about my dad dying
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Robert Armstrong
2 years
Martin Wolf cuts through the "it's the West's fault" nonsense
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Robert Armstrong
8 years
No.
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Robert Armstrong
4 years
It is a disappointment to me that only one reader seems to have noticed that I started this piece by quoting Homer Simpson and ended it by citing and economist named Smithers.
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Robert Armstrong
9 months
I'm sure somebody has explained this already but what is it with insurgent right wing male politicians and hair?
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Robert Armstrong
6 years
Received box with leaving gift from British friend. Opened it. Was reminded why I donโ€™t want to leave.
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Robert Armstrong
6 months
Food in poor countries is cheap when you buy it with dollars, local nitwit discovers
@RonFilipkowski
Ron Filipkowski
6 months
Tucker says after visiting a Russian grocery store he is โ€œradicalized against our leadersโ€ because Russians have it so much better than Americans.
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Robert Armstrong
10 months
Three years ago, on this day, in Philadelphia, the funniest thing ever to happen, happened. Proof that God wants us to be happy.
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Robert Armstrong
5 years
A person who was murdered on live TV has been proposed up for a board seat. This is not normal.
@AlexYoung
Alรฉx Young
5 years
@danpfeiffer I really hope this video of Stephen Moore getting absolutely destroyed by @crampell doesn't get retweeted and seen by the rest of the internet, because it would be very embarrassing for him.
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Robert Armstrong
7 years
The memorial service for irony will be private. In lieu of flowers, please donate to the charity of your choice.
@katie_martin_fx
Katie Martin
7 years
"The SNP wants to wrench Scotland out of its biggest market... It simply does not add up" - May speaking to Scottish Tories
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Robert Armstrong
2 years
@katie_martin_fx @MattGarrahan First things first, Katie. That tie-tucked-into-waistband move is straight๐Ÿ”ฅ.
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Robert Armstrong
5 years
Write something critical about Van Halen in a column, get quality reader engagement in return
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Robert Armstrong
7 years
ten pints, a fistfight, and a quick curry before bed
@jmackin2
James Mackintosh
7 years
What is the "British Dream"?
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Robert Armstrong
6 years
I am internet famous.
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Robert Armstrong
6 years
Words to live by
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Robert Armstrong
3 years
Pictured: journalist's inbox day after writing about bitcoin
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Robert Armstrong
2 years
Today in FT's Unhedged and @adam_tooze 's Chartbook: a debate on China's promise for global investors. UH sees more Japan-style slowing growth and weak index returns; CB sees transformation and sector leadership in e.g. green energy.
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Robert Armstrong
4 years
CALL IN THE MILITARY
@sindap
Sujeet Indap
4 years
on the topic of looting, here is the $1.5 billion that is set to go to lawyers and bankers in the PG&E bankruptcy, a case soon to wrap up that is ostensibly about compensating wildfire victims who had their lives upended
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Robert Armstrong
3 years
@dylanmatt Volvos are class signifiers not wealth signifiers.
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Robert Armstrong
4 years
@AnandWrites Have a drink in every bar in new york f'ing city
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Robert Armstrong
5 years
I know nothing about AOC, but that is the silliest goddamn sentence I've ever seen in an newspaper editorial, and I used to write some doozies myself.
@WSJopinion
Wall Street Journal Opinion
5 years
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez "leads a generation of young people to take pride in their ignoranceโ€”of the laws of nature, of history, of the Constitution, of the eternal battle for freedomโ€”and still succeed."
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Robert Armstrong
5 months
@nbarealist23 @jeffpearlman @Lakers Complicated guy, clearly, but a genuine intellectual and holy shit what a baller.
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Robert Armstrong
6 years
If eating chicken tenders off an Alabama highway is wrong, I don't want to be right
@aldotcom
AL.com
6 years
Alabama officials warned drivers to not eat chicken tenders that spilled onto the highway after a semi crashed: "There were some people trying to get the chicken," Josh Summerford, chief deputy for the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office, said.
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Robert Armstrong
9 years
Nikkei pays ~$2.4m per FT journalist. A goddamn bargain if you ask me.
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Robert Armstrong
7 years
START BY BANNING BLAZERS OVER JEANS YOU MONSTERS
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Robert Armstrong
2 years
@dieworkwear Looking bad in a suit is an important part of his brand not sure why he would put that at risk
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Robert Armstrong
1 year
Yowza
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Robert Armstrong
1 year
What are we going to do about this?
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Robert Armstrong
6 years
Today is my last day as the FT's chief leader writer. Next up in the job: @NeilRBuckley , who will do it better than I did. Next month I will be off to America, to write about banks, teaming up with @LauraNoonanFT That is all.
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Robert Armstrong
4 months
Back in the good old days, Columbia University would respond to student protests by calling in The Village People.
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Robert Armstrong
7 years
@DavidKeo still pales before the greatest research disclaimer of all time, from the UBS airlines team:
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Robert Armstrong
2 years
Everything wrong with Silicon Valley -- the short-sightedness, the self-congratulation, the lack of self-awareness, the ignorance of everything outside of software, the cool disregard for people who are different -- in one tweet. A miracle of concision.
@pmarca
Marc Andreessen ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ
2 years
Laptop Class (noun): Western upper-middle-class professionals who work through a screen and are totally abstracted from tangible physical reality and the real-world consequences of their opinions and beliefs. Synonyms: Professional-Managerial Class; Orwellโ€™s โ€œouter partyโ€.
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Robert Armstrong
7 years
Speaking as an American atheist who hates guns: shut you hole, Dawkins, you contemptible, puffed up, self-winding grease stain. Fifty people are dead, and you are making jokes about southern accents.
@RichardDawkins
Richard Dawkins
7 years
Durn tootinโ€™, great shootinโ€™. Cool dude sertinโ€™ heโ€™s 2nd Mendment rahts. Hell yeah! Every country has its psychopaths. In US they have guns
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Robert Armstrong
6 months
In a hidden laboratory deep below Aspen, Colorado, a crack team has been developing new ways for gazzilionares to make themselves look maximally out of touch with the real world. Today, their work has finally gone public.
@Jkylebass
๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ Kyle Bass ๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ผ
6 months
Terrible Inflation milestone reached - My first $85 breakfast for one at a NYC hotel. After signing this bill, I have decided NEVER AGAIN. #Biden #Inflation @SecYellen @federalreserve
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Robert Armstrong
3 years
I'm a union man now.
@FTUSGuild
FT US Guild
3 years
We are committed to working to make the FT a better, fairer, more equitable and stable place to work.
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Robert Armstrong
5 years
SNATCH SOME JEWELRY OR WHATEVER AND RUN FOR IT KIDS YOU CAN STAY IN MY BASEMENT TILL YOU GET JOBS
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Robert Armstrong
12 days
The recession which began last Thursday is now over. Rotate out of defensives and into financials.
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Robert Armstrong
2 years
what I like about Dudley's piece is that it makes clear what policy tightening is all about: destroying jobs and wealth to stop inflation
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Robert Armstrong
4 years
HOT TAKE: things are going ok! The result is clear; the legal arguments for overturning them are extremely weak; DT is acting like everyone knew he would, but the streets are calm. This country is split; the republic survives. Proud to be an American tonight.
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Robert Armstrong
2 years
@Gilesyb @benedictevans @ollybartrum Actually what GDP should reflect is the massive loss in productivity from people taking zillions of photos of things no rational person would give a shit about
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Robert Armstrong
3 months
people used to dress better
@paulieknep
Paul Knepper
3 months
Lew Alcindor with his girlfriend on the UCLA campus in 1966.
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Robert Armstrong
2 months
My dad at the office
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Robert Armstrong
2 years
PLACE YOUR BETS MARKETS PEEPS: Probability distribution of the four cells Asset classes that will outperform in each cell @RobinWigg @katie_martin_fx @adam_tooze @M_C_Klein @FedGuy12 @5_min_macro @Jesse_Livermore @ajb_powell @johnauthers
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Robert Armstrong
1 year
Where will the US economy be in a year's time? Recession, or no? Inflation, or no? Reply with your probabilities for A,B,C and D:
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Robert Armstrong
2 years
2 year bond is all "just kidding"
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Robert Armstrong
1 year
At epic scale (~24m rides a day) Uber doesn't make any money.
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Robert Armstrong
1 year
The magnificent 7, who are keeping the stock market afloat, are mostly mid-single digit growers now (Tesla and Nvidia grow faster)
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Robert Armstrong
29 days
Idiotic take Olympics continue.
@BillAckman
Bill Ackman
30 days
One would think that a letter to the American people from the president announcing his decision to step aside would not be signed using a digital signature and would be accompanied by a photo op and a scheduled conference in the morning that followed. Instead we have a
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Robert Armstrong
6 years
Headlines in the FT that, in retrospect, don't look all that great, Vol. 2: "Um, maybe it's not the investors we should be worrying about just now?"
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Robert Armstrong
1 year
Damn lady I already traded down from avocado toast
@BBCPolitics
BBC Politics
1 year
What does Anne Widdecombe say to people who can't afford some of the basics, like a cheese sandwich? "Then you don't do the cheese sandwich," adding, "we've come to regard it as some sort of given right that our food doesn't go up" #PoliticsLive
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Robert Armstrong
8 years
Beats kissing ass for a living tho
@piersmorgan
Piers Morgan
8 years
Quite extraordinary to watch US media colluding with US intelligence agencies in an effort to destroy the US President.
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Robert Armstrong
2 years
@zillowgonewild is this a CIA black site?
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Robert Armstrong
6 years
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Robert Armstrong
3 years
@PickardJE Dear Santa, All I want this Christmas is an FT big page about how some British politicians acted like assholes last Christmas Your pal Robert, age 6
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Robert Armstrong
4 years
My dad is 97. He was wounded by a Kamikaze at Layte Gulf, one of the biggest WWII naval battles. His main recollection? How kind and self-sacrificing his officers and fellow sailors were. Many of them died protecting his and other lives. I think of them this veteran's day. RIP.
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Robert Armstrong
2 months
Not even remotely close. He has to step down.
@sbg1
Susan Glasser
2 months
Biden giving a strong rally performance directly addressing his debate fail. Everything he wasnโ€™t last night. Sharp, passionate, clear on the threat from Trump. Is it enough to quell the fears of his party?
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Robert Armstrong
4 years
@NickCohen4 But it's not a coup attempt. It's fundraising. They're only route forward is through the courts, and they have absolutely nothing: no evidence, no real lawyers, no plan. The system will hold, and this foul parody will end.
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Robert Armstrong
3 months
Atlanta Fed GDPNow falling like a ROCK
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Robert Armstrong
1 year
I think Twitter is fine and don't know why everyone wants to leave. What am I missing?
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@rbrtrmstrng
Robert Armstrong
5 years
US policy in the middle east in one image
@poegirl
๐™ป๐šŠ๐šž๐š›๐šŠ ๐™ฟ๐š˜๐šŽ
5 years
Somehow I can relate to this... ๐Ÿ˜‚ #pianist #practice #piano #justoneofthosedays
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Robert Armstrong
5 months
Good thread on the state of labor negotiations in the FT's US operation. I love working for the FT, the greatest newspaper in the world. But my excellent coworkers deserve better than they get. Management needs to meet us in the middle -- starting today. ๐Ÿ’ช @FTUSGuild ๐Ÿ’ช
@FTUSGuild
FT US Guild
5 months
Weโ€™re in (hopefully) the final stretch of bargaining for our first contract with the @FT ! Weโ€™re kicking off a week of in-person bargaining with management today in New York. But the work is far from over. Weโ€™ve still got a lot to fight for.
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Robert Armstrong
4 years
You're god damn right he is
@IC_ActivityLog
Iowa City Police Log
4 years
MALE HUGGING A DOG FOR PAST 2 HOURS AT THIS LOCATION JUST SITTING ON CURB
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Robert Armstrong
2 years
Responding to words with violence is some weak shit, and all the other takes are wrong. Thank you for playing the Twitter.
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Robert Armstrong
3 years
remember how the whole thing went down between a crematorium and a shabby dildo store?
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Robert Armstrong
5 years
As a wise professor once told me: quality of writing will make no difference to your academic career; focus instead on the petty politics of your field/department
@saraannhart
Dr. Sara A. Hart
5 years
What is your best (academic) writing tip?
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Robert Armstrong
6 years
On page 17 of the FT today. Feels like one of those stories that might work its way towards the front page... @gabewildau
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Robert Armstrong
2 years
War or no war, the ESG bullshit train rolls on
@business
Bloomberg
2 years
With a Russian invasion right on its doorstep, Europe now finds itself discussing whether weapons should be listed as ESG assets, to grant them more favorable access to financing
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Robert Armstrong
1 year
My FT-subscribers-only markets and finance email, UNHEDGED, is available for *FREE* as 90 day free trial! Sign up here: Here's a taste:
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Robert Armstrong
2 years
The following is true and correct
@dieworkwear
derek guy
2 years
Every time I tweet about suits or sport coats here, someone invariably says that tailoring is oppressive, classist, gender-conforming, etc. One person even said suits are associated with imperialism. Yet, no one talks about how business casual asserts a new kind of oppression ๐Ÿงต
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Robert Armstrong
4 years
That's a shame cuz it looks like you haven't bought a new shirt since 1890
@Channel4News
Channel 4 News
4 years
"Nothing would make me less likely to go shopping than the thought of having to mask up." Conservative MP Sir Desmond Swayne calls the government's decision on wearing face coverings in shops in England a "monstrous imposition".
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Robert Armstrong
4 years
Anyone else really miss drinking in bars?
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Robert Armstrong
5 years
GOD DAMN IT NOW YOU TELL ME
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Robert Armstrong
2 years
Boring manboy literature bingo card
@librarymindset
Library Mindset
2 years
5 book recommendations by @elonmusk @MrBeast @pewdiepie and Steve Jobs
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Robert Armstrong
2 years
@GurdeepPandher Fifth Business, Robertson Davies
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Robert Armstrong
1 year
I thought higher rates would crush the homebuilders. Instead, they've rallied massively. Why? Existing home inventory has collapsed. Shoulda seen that coming.
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